ul after the winter night. I remember the effect of
the little parlour in which they sat as very bright and domestic. Lady
Osprey, in a costume of mauve and lace, sat on a chintz sofa and played
an elaborately spread-out patience by the light of a tall shaded lamp;
Beatrice, in a whiteness that showed her throat, smoked a cigarette
in an armchair and read with a lamp at her elbow. The room was
white-panelled and chintz-curtained. About those two bright centres of
light were warm dark shadow, in which a circular mirror shone like a
pool of brown water. I carried off my raid by behaving like a slave of
etiquette. There were moments when I think I really made Lady Osprey
believe that my call was an unavoidable necessity, that it would have
been negligent of me not to call just how and when I did. But at the
best those were transitory moments.

They received me with disciplined amazement. Lady Osprey was interested
in my face and scrutinised the scar. Beatrice stood behind
her solicitude. Our eyes met, and in hers I could see startled
interrogations.

"I'm going," I said, "to the west coast of Africa."

They asked questions, but it suited my mood to be vague.

"We've interests there. It is urgent I should go. I don't know when I
may return."

After that I perceived Beatrice surveyed me steadily.

The conversation was rather difficult. I embarked upon lengthy thanks
for their kindness to me after my accident. I tried to understand Lady
Osprey's game of patience, but it didn't appear that Lady Osprey was
anxious for me to understand her patience. I came to the verge of taking
my leave.

"You needn't go yet," said Beatrice, abruptly.

She walked across to the piano, took a pile of music from the cabinet
near, surveyed Lady Osprey's back, and with a gesture to me dropped it
all deliberately on to the floor.

"Must talk," she said, kneeling close to me as I helped her to pick it
up. "Turn my pages. At the piano."

"I can't read music."

"Turn my pages."

Presently we were at the piano, and Beatrice was playing with noisy
inaccuracy. She glanced over her shoulder and Lady Osprey had resumed
her patience. The old lady was very pink, and appeared to be absorbed in
some attempt to cheat herself without our observing it.

"Isn't West Africa a vile climate?" "Are you going to live there?" "Why
are you going?"

Beatrice asked these questions in a low voice and gave me no chance to
answer. Then taking a rhythm from th